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About Me

I'm Katje van Loon. I'm a writer, an author, a poet, and a menace to society. I am also an activist, a feminist, a geek, a knitter/crocheter, and many other things. I wear a host of hats. I've been blogging off and on (mostly on) since 2004. One of my first blog iterations was The Canadian Pagan, and I used to go by Jagged on Blogdrive.

This blog, Amoeba Kat Musings, has existed in many different forms and permutations since 2008. It's always been my writer-blog (ie, where I blog as Katje van Loon, Writer), but as time has gone on what I want to blog about as a writer has evolved. It's still evolving.

What you will find here, likely: posts on feminism and dismantling the kyriarchy. Politics. Fat acceptance. Pictures of my dog. Posts about my husband-type-person. Poetry. Me geeking out. Knitting. Occasionally, book reviews. And much, much more.

I try to be diligent about trigger warnings, but I don't put everything behind a cut. Read with caution.

(I do put spoilers behind cuts.)

On a side note, I am also an Ambassador for Barefoot Books, along with my mom. Barefoot Books supplies high-quality children's books via its ambassadors and online shop. I have been a collector of children's books for many years, and I'm excited to grow my collection with the help of Barefoot (and to help others grow their collections, too).

If you want to become an ambassador, click on the picture below to join my team.

If you just want to buy some awesome kids' books, click on this picture:

If you decide to become an ambassador under me, or buy books via the above link, you are supporting me and by extension my writing.

The Harry Potter series is full of character deaths. Perhaps not so many as other fantasy series, but a fair whack. They’re all written well enough to bring at least a tear to the reader’s eye — who didn’t choke a bit at Cedric Diggory’s death (especially in the film, with Amos screaming in anguish “That’s my boy!”), or sob like crazy when Sirius went beyond the veil in the Department of Mysteries? These characters were unequivocally seen as good guys, so their deaths hurt.

Not as much, however, as Snape’s death in the final book.

Many of you didn’t trust Snape after the ending of Half-Blood Prince, which I suppose is understandable — myself, I always trusted him, and knew the reasons behind his actions would be revealed and he would be good at heart. I was pleased to see myself vindicated, even as I cried out every drop of moisture my body possessed.

In Snape’s final moments, he gives Harry all his memories, and in a single chapter JK Rowling tells a devastating love story: that of Snape’s hopeless passion for Lily, how every action on his part was to protect her only child. She shows Snape’s pain in following Dumbledore’s orders to the very last — to have to kill the only man who had granted him his trust, his only real friend. And his refusal to accept that Harry Potter’s fate is to die — that they’ve been raising the child like a pig for slaughter, that soon all that remains of Lily in the world will be snuffed out, extinguished like a candle not allowed to burn out its full life.

Had Snape not been bitten by Nagini, had he not died giving Harry his memories, we never would have known all this. He never would have been vindicated. Harry would never know the truth — that Snape had grown fond of him, had grown to view him like the son he never had.

And so it is that Snape’s death is not only the saddest I can think of, but also the most satisfying — it’s only in death that he is redeemed, only in death do we see the true Severus.